Losing Faith
by VWChica
Summary: "For years," Voldemort hissed, "Harry Potter has done nothing but make my life a living nightmare. I have suffered for too long at his hand. Killing the boy would be too easy for him. I want to make him suffer, like he made me suffer for all of those year


Losing Faith  
  
Author: VWChica  
  
Rating: PG-13 (rating might change later on. doubtful.)  
  
Summary: "For years," Voldemort hissed, "Harry Potter has done nothing but make my life a living nightmare. I have suffered for too long at his hand. Killing the boy would be too easy for him. I want to make him suffer, like he made me suffer for all of those years."  
  
Notes: This started out as a short fic. I guess it is true that the story picks the writer, because I was not planning on this to be a long story at all. I'm having a blast writing it, though!  
  
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One month until graduation. The entire seventh year populous was alive with anticipation about the upcoming graduation ceremony. For one trio in particular, the upcoming events were being welcomed with a bittersweet attitude.  
  
It wasn't that Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley were dreading their graduation. Quite on the contrary, they couldn't wait until they were fully qualified in the magical community. Truth was, they were a bit uneasy as to where to go from there. True, they already had plans lined up for their professional careers - Hermione was going to apprentice Professor Flitwick at Hogwarts, Ron was set up to start Auror training with the Ministry of Magic, and Harry had already been invited by Team Captain Oliver Wood of the Puddlemere United to play on their team as a reserve seeker. Their worries stemmed entirely from uncertainties about their friendship, and where it was going to go now that they all had such separate lives picked out.  
  
Ever since their first year at Hogwarts, they had been the best of friends. The unbreakable trio. The dream team. Now school was almost finished, and they had their whole lives ahead of them. Trouble was, they weren't sure what to think of that.  
  
The one most notably unnerved by this was Harry himself. He never had any real friends before Hogwarts... his fat bully of a cousin, Dudley, made sure of that. The thought of him not spending time with the two people he considered to be his family was raining on his graduation parade. Add the fact that Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard of the time and Harry's sworn enemy, was out there on the loose, and one could see why Harry wasn't exactly jumping for joy at the fact that in just one month, he would be leaving the place that had been his sanctum for the past seven years.  
  
Harry looked across the rich, wooden table at his two friends. He would miss her the most, he realized, gazing at Hermione for an instant before realizing she was looking back. Over the years their friendship had grown stronger than steel, while neither of them realized it. Ron was a great friend, sure, but he was very bull-headed at times and insecure. He could never settle for being 'that kid who is friends with Harry Potter'. He wanted his own spotlight, and got jealous when Harry was reluctantly suffocated by his.  
  
Hermione was the exact opposite. She was the calm one, the rational one. She realized that Harry did not want all of that attention, and that there was nothing wrong with being known as his friend. Sure, many people knew her as a separate entity than Harry, after all, she was head girl and the brightest witch at the school, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous, but there were times that she was simply 'Harry's friend'.  
  
Harry had often thought about what it would be like if Hermione was more than his friend. As he snuck a glance across the table once again, he couldn't help but wonder. Sure, her and Ron had a brief thing in fifth year, but they were just too different to make it work out. Both of them were very stubborn, and would bicker constantly. They decided it would be best for their friendship if they ended things before it got too personal, and someone got hurt. Harry, however, had never once really fought with Hermione. There was the whole thing with his broom in third year, but deep down he knew that she was only looking out for him in the best way that she knew. And when in fourth year, and again in sixth, when Ron wouldn't speak with him, Hermione was always there to offer a shoulder and be his friend.  
  
He found himself thinking about her more and more as the days winded down to graduation. The way she smiled at his quirky remarks; the way her deep brown eyes lit up when she was nose-first in an interesting book; the way her thick, wavy hair flew behind her on the way to Care of Magical Creatures class... he found himself thinking these things more and more each day.  
  
His watch, a present from Hermione for his seventeenth birthday, gave a small beep, notifying him of the time. He was supposed to help out Professor Sprout, a plump witch who taught herbology, in the greenhouses before class. He had become an expert at repotting venomous tentactula, and Sprout had offered him a generous amount of extra credit points if he'd help her prepare some of the more difficult ones before classes started. Harry pressed the small silver button on his watch and turned to his two friends.  
  
"I gotta get headed towards Herbology. You guys finish your breakfast; I'll see you in class." He told them, standing up from the table. He waved a quick goodbye to his friends before walking towards the doors, noting that Hermione was looking at him with a hint of jealousy. It was a well known fact that she took the opportunity to get any extra credit that she could, and when he had told her about Sprout approaching him after class last week, she had been slightly hurt that the professor had not come to her first. When asked, the professor assured the girl that she was still getting the highest grade in the entire school, which made her feel a little bit better, but she still pouted for a good half hour.  
  
The day was pleasant, and it seemed to greet Harry warmly as he walked out of the castle. The air was fresh and the glowing sun basked him in warmth as he lazily walked towards the greenhouses. Harry was too busy looking at the birds flying gently in the air to take any notice of the small rat that ran past. He was oblivious to the soft noises behind him, noises of someone creeping up to his slow, relaxed pace. He failed to notice just about everything except his own thoughts until the curse hit him from behind.  
  
And everything went black.  
  
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Hope you like it so far! Please review with your thoughts . whether it be on how much you loved it, how bad it is, or things that I can do to improve. Note that flames will be fed to my Dobermans.  
  
Chapter 2 should be up real soon! 


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